By David J. Stewart | December 2011
I ask for your continued prayers for my on-going health problems. I feel
overwhelmed lately. I am suffering much from bodily afflictions due to my
peripheral neuropathy. The burning throughout my body (nerves) is
horrible. It's difficult just to get by from day-to-day. It all comes from
my neck.
As I type, the toothache-like pain in my neck is terrible and there's nothing I can do. The pain radiates into my facial area. The dull, aching, pain behind my eyes is awful. The entire facial area is sore. The 40 mg. of Oxycontin four times a day only takes the edge off.
My feet, ankles and hands became swollen the other night and lasted for 2 days because the Percocet reacted with the Oxycontin. I couldn't even put my shoes on. I take prescription Percocet for breakthrough pain, but my body lately won't let me take it. This pain has ruined my life.
People just don't understand. I try to force myself to go places and do things, but it is difficult. I feel overwhelmed. I hurt from head-to-toe. At times it is bearable and not as noticeable, but at other times it is overwhelming, such as now. The burning, tingling and puffiness in my arms and legs, neck pain that radiates into my facial area, side-effects of the medications, loneliness, et cetera; I am overwhelmed with all this. God's grace has led me this far, and grace will lead me home; but it's a hard road to travel. I am in torments. I need your prayers.
“Currently there is no proven treatment to prevent or cure Neuropathic pain (neuropathy or nerve pain). Instead, the primary goals of treatment are to reduce the pain as much as possible, balance the negative side effects of the treatment, and help patients manage any unresolved pain.”
I also have continual neck pain, chronic at times...
In severe cases, with chronic neck pain, the sufferer may also experience depression, mood swings (anger and anxiety), irritability, sleep disturbances, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and even drug dependency connected to the incident.
SOURCE: Neck Pain - Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis and Treatments
In the book PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY by Norman Latov, MD, PhD, he shares his own medical afflictions (neuropathy) with others to encourage them. ...
Functioning day to day is not easy. Living with neuropathy teaches you very quickly that you cannot take anything for granted. Just a few years ago, if someone had told me that walking up a flight of stairs could be agonizing and make me feel like I'd just climbed Mount Everest, I wouldn't have believed them. Let me tell you: I believe them now.
From the outside, you could never know anything is wrong. In fact, someone recently said how lucky I was that no one can tell I have this disease. Actually, it's a double-edge sword. I don't want people to think something is wrong with me. On the other hand, I often feel like I'm suffering in silence because no one understands what I'm living with. I try very hard to hide what I'm going through. ...
When you are diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy, you constantly are confronted with what life was like “before” and “after.” “Before” meant living without having to think about every little thing you do. It meant walking down stairs without having your heart skip a beat as you fear you may tumble down instead of walk down. “Before” meant taking a step without having to take a step.
“After” means thinking before doing. When you wake up in the morning, you get out of bed, remembering to be careful not to lose your balance.
SOURCE: PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY: When the Numbness, Weakness, and Pain Won't Stop; by Norman Latov, MD, PhD; pages 103-104; ISBN-13:978-1-932603-59-0
That is exactly what I have been diagnosed with (peripheral neuropathy) and am going through. I have also been diagnosed with stenosis (narrowing of the spinal cord pathway and radiculopathy (tingling, burning, weakness, and pain radiating in the arms and legs). It's a miserable way to exist. It seems like only a dream when I think back to a time in my life when I was pain free and happy. I long for Christ's return and the redemption of my body... “even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23).
Coping with Peripheral
Neuropathy and Neck Pain-Tension
Job 16:1, “Then Job answered and said, I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all. Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest? I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you. But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.”
Until a person is afflicted with endless pain, they naturally can't relate to such suffering and can't possibly understand. They just can't. I know what's it's like to be outside on a beautiful day with the sun shining, and everybody is enjoying life and having a good time; but physical suffering within my body is afflicting me and it overshadows me.
Philippians 2:13, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” That is why this website is here, i.e., because God has done a work in my heart to will and to do of His good pleasure. Amen and amen!
I suffer every day of my life, trusting God to see me through to another day. Unfortunately I just can't handle e-mails anymore, and I apologize to those who want to communicate with me. We'll have plenty of time up in Heaven, and I believe that time will be very soon. God's grace is the only answer (Hebrews 4:15-16).
I have endured the Devil afflicting me ever since my ministry began to grow in 2004. I started the work in 2002. Only the Lord knows the depth of suffering that I've endured. Job didn't have it so bad. The book of Job reads like a biography of my life. Job 16:20-21, “My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God. O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!” Job 19:19, “All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me.” I have a faithful Savior in Heaven and that is my hope. Jesus is precious!
I ask for your earnest prayers for this ministry and me daily. This ministry is much bigger than me, it's about the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is THE WAY, THE TRUTH, and THE LIFE (John 14:6)! HEAR YE HIM!
“Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).
